OutdoorNebraska

B lowouts are wind-excavated, bare sand depressions in Sandhills dune prairie and the sole habitat in our state for the blowout penstemon. Since settlement, blowouts have become extremely rare in the Sandhills, which occupy over 19,000 square miles of north-central Nebraska, resulting in the penstemon's decline. In 2017, Turner Enterprises, Inc. (TEI) undertook a project to restore this rare plant in a bison pasture on their Spikebox Ranch located in the Sandhills of Cherry County. In the early 1900s, blowouts were abundant in the Sandhills and an early botanist described blowout penstemon as "one of the more common and typical species" of this habitat. Remarkably, by 1940, the plant was thought to be extinct. A wetter climate beginning in the early 1900s, coupled with settlers' control of wildfires and their later use of conservative grazing practices had eliminated most blowouts. Fortunately, blowout penstemon was re-discovered in 1968, and in the 1980s it was listed as state and federally endangered. In 2017, Turner Enterprises, Inc., and its conservation partners including the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, began a project in the 250-acre Hunt Pasture to restore the penstemon. We used a never before tried method to disturb the grass cover and let the wind naturally create blowouts after heavy bison grazing. Herds of several hundred bison were kept in the pasture until little grass remained, at which time they were moved to other pastures. When grass returned, the bison were cycled back into the Hunt Pasture. In the fall and winter of 2018 and 2019 after blowouts had developed, the partners sowed a total of five pounds of penstemon seed in Hunt Pasture blowouts. In spring of 2019 and 2020, they planted several hundred greenhouse- grown seedlings in the blowouts. Surprisingly, blowout creation in the Hunt Pasture was more difficult than anticipated because the project had taken place over several of the wettest years in recorded Sandhills history, which caused grass growth to outpace bison grazing. Today, about half the pasture consists of blowouts. Last summer, TEI's ecologists surveyed the Hunt Pasture and found 60 flowering blowout penstemons and 40 seedlings. The flowering plants were located in areas where seed was sown, but no greenhouse seedlings were planted. It appears that few, if any, of the greenhouse plants survived the winter of 2020–21, excessive blowing sand either uprooted or buried them. The partners have learned that in extremely active blowouts, the better approach to establishing the blowout penstemon is to scatter abundant seed about the blowouts and let nature decide when and where seedlings sprout and take hold. Heavy grazing in the Hunt Pasture will continue for another year or two, until more blowouts are created. In the meantime, more penstemon seed will be sown, and once more blowouts are established, grazing will be reduced to slow the movement of sand, and the penstemon will hopefully thrive. 4 3 A blowout penstemon flowers on the leeward side of a recently created blowout in the Hunt Pasture on Turner Enterprises' Spikebox Ranch. GERRY STEINAUER, NEBRASKALAND By Gerry Steinauer, Botanist, Nebraska Game and Parks Commission Blowout Penstemon Restoring on Turner Enterprise's Spikebox Ranch

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